November 2003 Archives

November 05, 2003 — Pictures from Halloween weekend in San Francisco. After a brief photo hiatus, I'm back with a bang with over 156 pics from the weekend (157).

Comments (0)

November 06, 2003 — Tips annoy me. I'm not talking about sirloin beef tips, finger nail extensions, or unwanted advice, although I'm not really a fan of any of that. I'm talking about gratuities. The kind that we give in restaurants, hotels, cabs, barbershops and at the dentist.

I don't understand why people consider the tipping process to be an extremely covert operation. Why do they very carefully fold up dollars bills, hide them perfectly behind their fingers, and subtly make the hand off during the handshake? I contend that this is silly because tipping is not something we need to hide. It's not embarassing. It's a wonderful thing. You should be proud to give it and someone should be proud to receive it.

On the other end of the tipping continuum are people like my parents who take the opposite approach. If they're giving a tip, they want to make sure the receiver knows about it. When my parents pay with a credit card at a restaurant's register (diner), they feel the need go to the back of the restaurant to tell the waitress that the tip is being added to the credit card. This is important because the waitress might not be familiar with the unusual procedure of adding the tip to the credit card.

I'd imagine that in most cases, waitresses are not really paranoid about getting stiffed. That's probably why a group of 15 of us were able to eat a $600+ meal the other night and were able to leave without paying the bill. In fairness to me, it turns out it was just a big misunderstanding and apparently people had expected me to put this company dinner on my credit card. Only problem was that I didn't know this. When you get stiffed in the magnititude of several hundred dollars, the subtlely goes out the window. The poor waitress came to our office the next morning and said... uh, you never paid your bill. So I took care of it, apologized, and told her to enjoy the 20% tip for the trouble we caused her. $125 certainly would make me feel better.

Coming soon: The smandel.com Guide to Tipping

Comments (0)

November 10, 2003 — A weekend in Pittsburgh typically means a trip to the mall. And a trip to the mall typically means fun.

This weekend I was looking for a winter coat and I saw one I liked at the Gap. The sales agent told me it was 25% off and if I opened a Gap card, I could save 15%, for a total savings of 40%. Despite my typical reservations about the store credit card, this seemed like a good deal. I mean, I would have expected the 15% to come off the discounted price. But she said in no uncertain terms that it would be 40% off.

I tried it on and it fit. The fitting room girl said, 'You know, that's 25% off plus another 15% if you open a credit card. That would be 40% off!' These people must think I'm not good at math or something.

When I got to the register, the guy told me about the credit card thing and how I could be looking at 40% off. I remembered that I needed a new credit card since I was going to let my Citibank Mastercard expire at the end of the month (they pissed me off). That's another story but the long and short of it was they asked me to sign that I agree to the 'new terms and conditions' without actually including the terms and conditions I was agreeing to. So I signed up for my Gap card (I briefly skimmed the terms and conditions).

He rings it up and it's not quite 40% off. I frowned upon receiving the receipt and Gap boy asked me what was wrong. 'I thought it was 40% off. This isn't 40% off,' I said acting completely surprised even though I kind of expected it.

'Yes it is. There's 25% off and there's the 15% off,' he explained, pointing to the receipt.

'But I thought it was 40% off the original price,' I innocently inquired.

'Yeah, it is. See, 25% and 15% adds up to 40%,' he explained very politely and matter-of-factly.

'Actually, it doesn't,' I said, trying not to sound like too much of a smart ass. 'It looks like the 25% off was applied first and the 15% was taken off the discounted price,' I explained. I received a blank stare, as if I was crazy or really bad at math. 'Do you have a calculator?' I asked.

He pulled out a calculator. One of the ones that write the result to a ticker tape.

'If it was really 40% off I should pay 60% of the original price, right?' I asked. He shook his head yes. I multiplied the original price by 0.6 and showed him that it in fact was less than what the register rang up. He was pretty surprised, but he knew that a calculator doesn't lie. Especially not the kind with the ticker tape.

Still in amazement and completely unsure of what to do he asked 'So do you want to return it?'

'No, I said. I want 40% off the original price. Like I was promised.' I said confidently yet politely. It wasn't completely his fault that he was bad at math.

'Uh. Let me get the manager,' he said. Since he was so nice, I started to feel a little bad for exploiting the mathematical inferiority of the Gap sales associates. Until the manager came over. She was one of those 'I'm better than you because I'm a Gap manager' types. So I stuck with it.

A little better at math, she said the credit card discount applied to the discounted price. She asked me if I wanted to return the coat. Once again I said I wanted the difference between what I was told and what I was charged. It was only 5 bucks, but it was a principle thing now.

'I can't do that, sir,' she said, arrogantly. I love it when people use 'polite words' like 'sir' and 'thank you' while simultaneously convey attitude with intonation and body language (conversational meta data).

'Well, I was told by three separate associates that the coats were 40% off. While it's clearly an honest mistake, I think it's very questionable to sell products based on inaccurate information,' I explained.

'Fine,' she said, admitting defeat. 'Refund him the difference,' she said to Gap boy and stormed away.

On her way off, I threw in a little something for good measure. 'Perhaps you should clarify how you explain these discounts to customers in the future.'

'We will,' she said, snapped her tongue, flipped her head back, and walked away. I contemplated adding in 'That shirt makes you look fat.' But I decided against it.

See kids, studying your math does pay off.

Comments (0)

November 12, 2003 — Maybe one of the reasons why people are so excited about 'unique events' is because it's really exciting when cool things come together.

There's this old Billy Joel bootleg I have where he does impressions. Right before Miami 2017 (# 3), he does an impression of Bruce Springsteen's Jungleland (# 2). I have this Counting Crows bootleg where right in the middle of Rain King (# 61) he breaks into Thunder Road (# 6). It's like when New York Minute (# 202) was at the begining of The West Wing. Or when The Commish (Michael Chiklis) was in Seinfeld.

I bet this is why pizza is so good. I mean, bread is good. Sauce is good. And cheese is really good.

Comments (0)

November 13, 2003 — I actually had another fun experience at the mall this past weekend. A few weeks back I saw the coolest remote control car at the Minneapolis airport. It could never get stuck. It flipped over, went upside down, rode on its side. It was cool. I didn't get it and I regretted it.

They were selling it at a mall kiosk. So I went over and looked. A pushy sales associate tells me all about it. He asks if I'm looking for a gift. I think I can't admit that I'm buying it for myself, so I say 'yes.'

'Oh, for Christmas?,' he asked.

I looked at myself for any physical signs of my Jewishness. No yarmulke on my head, no tallis on my shoulders, no chai around my neck. 'Yup, a Christmas present.'

'For a little brother or nephew?,' he asks.

This guy was a little pushy but I really didn't want to lie. 'No. It's for a friend,' I said rather cleverly. I could think of plenty of friends who would love this thing.

'How old is he?,' the salesman asks.

Hmmmm... all the friends I was thinking of are between around 23 and 28. I panicked. 'He's twelve,' I said, thinking I was clever. Until I realized that I'm buying gifts for a twelve year boy.

A few moments pass and he says it's $40. He said the price was going up to $60 as we got closer to Christmas. This I didn't believe. But it was pretty cool. I played with it for a while, still deciding. He asks what my hold up is. My real hold up was whether I need anymore toys. 'The price,' I said.

Thinking I'm bargaining, he says 'Tell you what. It's been a good day. It's give it to you for $35.' I look interested. 'Plus I'll pay the tax,' he adds. He asks me not to tell anyone. I was going to ask if posting it on my Web site counts, but I decided it was best not to.

So I bought the car and the guy asked what color my twelve year old friend likes. I said, 'Silver. That's the color of my car.'

The car is pretty cool. I'm not quite confident that I didn't get ripped off. For all I know, it may have be $20 for people buying it for their little brothers, $30 for people tough enough to admit it's for themself, and $35 for people who come across as potential pedophiles.

Comments (0)

November 17, 2003 — When I check in for my flight, I usually pick my seat very carefully. Since I'm an elite member, I can sometimes pick from better seats when there's no first class. This is why is makes me pretty mad when I sit down, get all settled in, and someone asks me to switch seats. This has happened during the majority of my recent flights and although it bothers me, I always switch.

This week I had enough. I had a fun but really tiring weekend in NYC (it's the city that doesn't sleep) so I arranged for a window seat where I could rest my head against the wall and sleep. I boarded early, got comfortable, and closed my eyes to enjoy a few zzz's before an enormous group of high school kids got on board. Several minutes later, a woman very passively asked if I could switch so she could sit with her friend (not a kid... I would always move for a kid). I asked which seat and it was a non-window B bulkhead seat, probably the single worst seat on the EMB-145. I said I preferred to stay in my seat.

Afterwards, the woman across the aisle says, 'no one was able to get a seat together tonight. I'm traveling with a big group and we're all over the plane.' Ha ha ha. The lady got stuffed. Or so I thought.

'So I'm sure I can get a few members of the high school church group I'm with to switch seats,' she said. 'John, Paul, Peter, Christopher, come up here and be good people and switch seats with these ladies.' Oh yes, it has been confirmed, I'm going to hell.

As we pushed back from the gate, about 25 kids start praying and singing religious songs. Really loud. The kid next to me has a rosary out and is saying all this stuff about holy Mary mother or something. It's going on for about 30 minutes until we're well into the air.

All I could think was that the plane's gonna crash and I'm totally going to hell. And then it occurred to me. The whole plane is praying, we won't crash. But then I thought, sure we will. You always hear really messed up sad stuff like that on the news. A plane of kids coming back from a religious conference crashes. Unfortunate (mmm... maybe even ironic) stuff like that happens all the time. Fortunately, we didn't crash.

Throughout the plane ride, about 12 different kids sat in that seat next to me. Each screaming across the plane, completely leaning over me to look out the window, shifting and rustling about. Clearly, I was being punished.

Comments (0)

November 17, 2003 — Two new pictures galleries have been added. The first are some pictures from month of Gabe, our going away festivities for Gabe. It's called part one because more festivities are planned. The next are some pictures from the weekend in New York.

Comments (0)

November 18, 2003 — While at a fancy NYC restaurant this weekend, I was disappointed to find no chicken on the menu. The waitress suggested the squab, which she described as a 'game bird.' I'd never heard of it before. Turns out it's pigeon, the most revolting living creature in the world. After this and the sweetbreads incident I've decided to start carrying around my food dictionary wherever I go.

Comments (0)

November 19, 2003 — When people want to show that a comparison makes no sense, they say it's like comparing apples and oranges. But really, apples and oranges aren't all that different (both fruit, similar size and shape, sweet taste, etc.) Why not say, it's like comparing apples and going for a run. Apples are nothing like going for run.

Comments (0)

November 21, 2003 — Sara from work is currently in the midst of applying to grad schools so the topic of college essays frequently comes up. It brought back memories of one I once wrote but my dad never let me send in -- an 'outtake' (if you will). That's certainly a good thing, but it makes for a good 'laugh at' kind of thing. The topic was one of those, name as person, past or present, real or fictional, that you would like to meet. Here it is, straight from the archives:

As I see it, the Smurf Village is a microcosm of the world itself. While I'm not insinuating that our planet is made up of little blue creatures who stand three apples tall and live in mushroom houses, there are many similarities between the Smurfs and people. Since it would impossible to meet each Smurf individually, I would be more than satisfied to spend an evening with Papa Smurf, the leader and president of the Smurf Village.

To me, he is the most logical Smurf to spend time with, but I'm sure that many other people would choose to meet a different one. After all, the Smurf Village is made up of a diverse and varied population that excels in the many areas of life. Student scholars might wish to meet Brainy Smurf, who, despite his annoying, obnoxious, and condescending attitude, is by far the intellectual genius of the group. Perhaps student athletes might wish to meet Hefty Smurf who, although he is a bit arrogant, could lift more weight than all of the other Smurfs combined. And maybe student chefs might wish to meet Greedy Smurf, who, in spite of being unwilling to share his food, is capable of creating some of the most delectable and appetizing culinary treats in the world. The problem is, however, that these Smurfs are one-dimensional, only focusing on the area in which they are talented. Papa Smurf, on the other hand, while he may not be the smartest or the strongest or the most talented, is well-rounded and tries his best in whatever he takes on. It is his ability to recognize the differences among the Smurfs and accept them for who they are that makes him a role model to all.

When I think of a leader, I think of Papa Smurf. When in the face of danger, it is his level-head and quick thinking that saves the day from Gargamel and his evil cat, Azreal, villains who dedicate their lives to the pursuit and capture of Smurfs. His coolness under pressure, combined with his mature and sensible approach to problems, helps him keep peace within the village. Whenever a conflict arises between the Smurfs, Papa Smurf steps in and helps mediate the problem. It is his experience, responsibility, and character that makes him a leader in every sense of the word.

In fact, now that I think about it, Papa Smurf would be an excellent candidate for President of the United States. His honesty and integrity would prevent him taking part in shady business dealings so that scandals such as Smurfwater and Smurfgate would never develop. In addition, during a time when the first lady plays such a critical role in politics, Papa Smurf could marry Smurfette, the only female Smurf and author of 'It Takes A Smurf Village.' Their vision of creating a society where everyone could work cooperatively with one another would help 'build a Smurf bridge to the twenty-first century.'

As strange as it sounds, I think Papa Smurf and I have a lot in common. Although I'm not a nine-inch tall blue organism, I share many of his values and perspectives on life. By meeting with him, I believe I would be able to become a better person, capable of becoming a great leader.

Comments (0)

November 24, 2003 — 'You wanna know what my favorite kinda night is?This is my favorite night!'

A bunch of friends from work headed down to Chicago for a weekend of science and art (but not of pizza), the trolley for Jesus, and delicious grilled cheese. Here are the pictures from the weekend.

Comments (0)

November 25, 2003 — A big congrats goes out to Greg who just found out he got into Penn for grad school. Nice work, dude. Welcome back to the days of loud erasing, campus printers, and the FRAs of the world.

Comments (0)

November 26, 2003 — Pants makers are pretty smart. They've come up with great ideas for speciality pants. Stain defending, wrinkle free, and breathable are just a few of their ingenious inventions. Well, I have news for these smarty pants (get it?), I'm smarter. Because if I were in charge, I'd combine all these special options to create super pants! I'd call them smarty pants except nobody likes a smarty pants. Or so I'm often told.

Sometimes I wake up in the morning and have plenty of time to iron, know I won't make a mess, and am confident that the office will remain at a consistent, seasonally appropriate temperature. More often than not (read: always), not a single one of these conditions are true. So every morning I'm faced with the difficult choice of choosing between ingenious inventions. It's not easy. With super pants, I would have no worries. And not having to worry about your pants goes a long way.

There are marketing opportunities here as well. My stain defender pants warn again ironing too often because it wears down the stain repellancy power. I say, what an excellent candidate for the wrinkle free feature. You won't get stains AND you'll never have to iron again!. Make them breathable, and no need to worry about those embarassing sweat stains!

Comments (0)

back to the archive index